Bigger than the population from most countries and known as "the faithful", the supporters from the brazilian football club Corinthians are one of the biggest fanbases in the world, estimated to be around 30 million and proud of their feats as supporters almost as much as their feats as a football team. Recently, an official advertisement has been referring to the supporters as "the infected". An antidote? "They'd rather die".

Current continental champions, Corinthians is facing the champions from every continent on the 2012 Fifa Club World Cup, tournament in which Corinthans was the champion in 2000. Among others, Corinthians might face african champions Al-Ahly, north-american champions Monterrey, asian champions Ulsan, or even the UEFA Champions League champions, Chelsea. This tournament is going to take place in Japan.

Around 15,000 supporters gathered together at the internationl airport for a "good luck farewell", which can be seen on the video below:

Video was taken when about 1/3 of the people who went to the airport were in the main lobby, and it's the one which has the best quality nevertheless.

So, I have been wondering, do you have any kind of such fanaticism in your country? Even though I am from Brazil, such fanaticism still baffles me.

I'm from Melbourne and there's a club here equivalent to what would happen if Corinthians & Flamengo married called Collingwood. Those Gaviões da Fiel are a crazy bunch of fuckers, they even beat up their own players and have attacked the team bus (team inside) if they thought the team's performance isn't up to scratch, and not to mention intimidating and threatening club officials... a pleasant bunch of fellows to be sure. I'm a Fluminense supporter myself (Campeao 2012 ;). The only Brazilians I meet in Melbourne seem to be Paulistas who are Corintianos or Palmeirenses... I would call myself a crazy Flu supporter more than I would call myself a crazy Essendon (AFL) supporter these days.

GreyGhost said:
In Melbourne it's Aussie Rules football (aerial ping-pong to others), though the now highly commercialised nature of the code is dampening the fanaticism.

Not true, I still hate Collingwood with a passion more than EVER!!! Joking aside, AFL still seems to break records every year in regards to attendance and the quality of the games (especially finals) are top notch these days. The grand finals have become hard fought wars of attrition in the last decade, as opposed to the one sided blowouts that they used to be when I was growing up.

Brazilian football fans are fanatical alright, but it would be nice to see them exercising their fanaticism in a stadium for once... people who don't know about football/soccer or are casual fans who have the impression that Brazilians are mad about football may be surprised to know that average attendance this season was slightly above 10,000 a match, much lower than China and even the US, and that the majority of league matches are played to only half-full or near empty stadiums. The match in which my beloved Fluminense wrapped up this year's championship was attended by fewer than 8000 supporters. Brazilian friends explained it to me as not so much that Brazil loves the world cup, that they love to PARTY around the world cup!

In regards to your original question, the parochial fanaticism that once existed in AFL is all but gone, but the quality of the game and it's presentation have improved greatly and for the better. People in general seem to be more fanatic about the game itself than the teams. Unlike in Brazil, where opposing supporters are segregated and alcohol has been banned at the stadiums (this must have something to do with low attendance ;), opposing supporters can mix freely and have alcohol with no trouble or violence occurring at the games.

Fluminense fans are pretty fanatical as well, but they do it with more class ;)
Our toricda goes to the airport too:

There are football clubs all over the world, though they might take different twists depending on how criminally or politically inclined the fanbase is.

In the UK and the Anglosphere (except the USA) I know that there are the so-called "football firms", with a blue-collar, working-class membership, usually right wing/convervative in ideology and with a violence/vandalism culture.

In Italy, football "firms" tend to be more politicized and there are both extreme right and extreme left associations, and rather than pure "blood and honor", they prefer using politics as an end to justify their means. In Greece there are both types of firms, but the fan clubs of the most mainstream teams are closer to the Corinthians in "philosophy", and some take their team associations quite seriously. PAOK fans are considered to be the most hardcore/dangerous. The sad thing is that many fringe individuals/petty criminals use "footbal fandom" to justify their petty crimes or find a meaning to their lives, and will "defend" their football club to the bitter end.

I'm from the UK. England to be precise. Football (soccer) is one of the national sports (we invented it, apparently). You know when a match is on because you have never seen so many men with shaved heads drinking lager on a train at any other time. The obnoxious chants in train stations and between the train stations and the stadiums are a fact of life in places like Manchester and certain parts of London.

Things get pretty violent, pretty loud and pretty rowdy and I don't see the appeal myself. I'd much rather play the game than watch a load of massively overpaid prima donnas dive every few minutes and throw tantrums when the ref doesn't believe them. Although even I tend to catch the England games when the World Cup is on - its just part of the culture I guess :P

Phobus said:
Football (soccer) is one of the national sports (we invented it, apparently).

Be that as it may, while I can't speak for other nations' interests I don't understand the mass appeal of the sport in Britain. I'm far from being a "fan" of rugby (also a sport of English heritage), but given the choice of watching a football or rugby match I would choose the latter; much more stuff going on and, being a full-contact sport, the players don't pretend to fall to the ground in agony. Football is honestly resemblant of the theatrics in pro wrestling sometimes.

I know that rugby, amongst other sports, have a huge appeal in the UK, but they're all eclipsed by the fanaticism surrounding football, even if the majority of football fans are just that and not violent thugs who give the sport a bad name.

There are several movies on the subject of UK football firms (The Firm, I.D., Rise of the Footsoldier, Awaydays etc.).

What they all have in common is that there is very little portrayal of an actual football match -or even none at all. I.D. only ever shows the outside of the stadium, the crowd etc. but never the field, the teams etc.). That should say a lot on the nature of those "firms". Often, the characters are made to say that they do it (the violence, fighting etc.) because they "like the buzz".

Maes said:
There are several movies on the subject of UK football firms (The Firm, I.D., Rise of the Footsoldier, Awaydays etc.).

What they all have in common is that there is very little portrayal of an actual football match -or even none at all. I.D. only ever shows the outside of the stadium, the crowd etc. but never the field, the teams etc.). That should say a lot on the nature of those "firms". Often, the characters are made to say that they do it (the violence, fighting etc.) because they "like the buzz".

The national sport in France is being jealous of your neighbor, so there's not really that kind of unity in fanaticism. People will band together to protest and riot, up until they see an opportunity for personal gain and happily backstab everyone else. Infighting in Doom is a realistic depiction of the social currents in Paris.

Maybe a bit more, at least for what regards my country's football clubs ;-)

Maybe of them do have a century-old history, and most started out as small regional or even neighborhood based football clubs, closely tied/knit with the local community, often a disadvantaged one or in hard times.

Some of them (AEK, PAOK) were founded by refugees of the Asia Minor Catastrophe, and so had a legacy of suffering, forced emigration and the bond that such situations cause. The football club was a sumbol for their lost homelands back in Asia Minor, and a lot of their energy and emotional investment now went to the club.

Other football clubs were more associated with syndicates/labour unions, or simply with the everyman's daily struggles. Belonging to the club meant belonging to a community that could offer support and protection (those were not easy times). Occasionally, the club had to be defended. An attack on the club was an attack on your community (see any similarity with Gangs of New York here?).

So, first and foremost, they offered a sense of belonging to mostly disadvantaged/poor/suffering/proletarian communities.

Now, AFAIK in the UK football firms were also often associated with a working class/blue collar/proletarian/disadvantaged background, for pretty much the same reason: they started out locally and as "grassroots" organizations in the aforementioned social environments, and membership had pretty much the same purpose and implications.

Now, why football and not, say, tennis or croquet? Unlike those other sports, football is a sport for the masses and the poor: even in the poorest 3rd world countries, you'll see children playing football with anything they can find, be it two stones as goalposts and a cabbage or rag ball as, well, a ball. So it's something readily identified, easily accessible, popular and easy to improvise. Something everybody can relate to.

The game of football itself is a team sport with numerous teams (most of any other mainstream sport), and has an explicit combat and "us vs them" element (though more controlled than, say, rugby). It's hard to feel the same way about a single tennis player, for instance.

Needless to say, a sense of belonging to a powerful group would be incomplete without "natural enemies" to fight and "victories" to be won. These elements are more easily channeled into violent behaviours (if anything, just for the herd/pack effects), and seeing how football clubs were proletar/blue collar to begin with, solving problems or perceived wrongs with your fists fitted right in.

It still seems an arbitrary connection. Like you've suggested with the way these "firms" are portrayed in film; the game itself needn't even be important, and it's just an excuse for two gangs to kick the shit out of each other. I can definitely buy that. We could loosely sum it up as a less wholesome example of human nature, I guess.

I am disadvantaged (asperger autism bs) and poor (disability pension is not sufficient for me, to afford all things I would like to buy) and I never had a need to belong in group of some people who praise other people/ficitional beings, like those football groups or religion groups.

I rather had feelings of hate on people who are more succesfull than me, like the Maes who is most likely more inteligent than me and have higher knowledge of english, but I should not want to kill people just for that.

I also want to control the world and destroy everything that does not fit into my picture of perfect universe, including people. Maybe I am just messed up from all those violent computer games, especialy orpg games.

So, yeah such *fanaticism* happen even here in Czech Republic, but I never uderstood those people.

Sokoro said:
I also want to control the world and destroy everything that do not fit into my picture of perfect universe, including people. Maybe I am just messed up from all those violent computer games, especialy orpg games.

ITT: we learn that it's better to be a dictator or flourishing serial killer than a common-or-garden thug.

DoomUK said:
I know that rugby, amongst other sports, have a huge appeal in the UK, but they're all eclipsed by the fanaticism surrounding football, even if the majority of football fans are just that and not violent thugs who give the sport a bad name.

I absolutely loathe football, quite frankly. The amount of coverage it gets, and the way that most times people start kicking off because THEY don't like how something turned out is just...plain disgusting.
And as for how much "professional" footballers are paid.

And football in it's current format is an English invention (although the Ancient Greeks were using their feet for ball games thousands of years before), and I'd like to take this moment to say on behalf of England: Sorry, sorry for starting a never-ending stream of overrated gobshite.

About as powerful as David Mitchell will ever sound...Have to say I laughed quite hard at that.
So the only time I actually like football is when it's having the piss taken out of it.
I expect somewhere there's an impression of the after-match reports from the players....

uhhh...we did our best....team did a great job..uhhh..the other team were stronger though...nothing we could've done...hopefully we'll come back in the game on sunday...uhhhh...the team did a great job....other team had a strong attack...uhh..yeah...hopefully we'll do better on the game on sunday...
(sacks manager, and takes £200,000 weekly wage)

Phobus said:
@Eris Falling: You missed "...At the end of the day..." :P

and talking about other players, referring to them by their first name, expecting the listener to know what they're supposed to be talking about, as if you could actually make out the words anyway.
I knew there was something!

Eris Falling said:
part of me doubts the genuineness of this, it's just too hilariously stupid. Please confirm these are real.

The "Colemanballs" feature is sourced from real statements made by commentators and others. I didn't hear any of these being said live (I'd need to watch football for that to be the case), but that has happened in the case of other sports.

Besides, can you imagine these guys talking for more than a few minutes without saying something non-sensical? I doubt you'd need to make these things up.